Stories by Patty Wetli

Monitors with both Chicago Piping Plovers and Lake County Audubon Society reported eggs laid at Montrose Beach and the Waukegan shoreline, respectively.

The rare ghost orchid bloom will be on public display at the garden’s Tropical Greenhouse through May 25.

On May 9, one of the herd's females gave birth to a calf, the first baby bison born on tallgrass prairie in the county in 200 years, officials estimate.

The Chicago Park District has erected barriers at the Southeast Side park where a pair of eaglets and their parents are nesting.

Chicago’s Native and Pollinator Garden Registry is now open for applications. But before a single submission has even been accepted, an amendment to the ordinance governing the registry is already in the works.

For the first time in more than 100 years, a bald eagle has been born inside the city’s limits, the Chicago Park District announced Wednesday.

Most birds migrate over Chicago at night. A new network of acoustic monitors is tracking their movements by listening for what can't be seen.

Grounds, custodial and facilities employees had been on the picket line since Monday.

Officials with Chicago's Department of Environment recently released an updated Green Infrastructure Strategy, the first revision to the document in more than a decade.

Monitors have confirmed that for the third year running Sea Rocket has returned to Montrose and Blaze is back at Waukegan.

Officials said the zoo remains open and “animal care continues without interruption.”

Deborah Witzburg served a single four-year term as inspector general and declined to ask Mayor Brandon Johnson for reappointment following frequent clashes with the mayor.

Pepper has been spotted on a Waukegan beach, where he and mate Blaze nested in 2024 and '25.

The annual City Nature Challenge has rolled around again, and everyone's invited to join the effort to boost the Chicago region's standing in this friendly global competition.

Lincoln Park Zoo’s baby Eastern black rhino is ready to meet her adoring public.

What kind of outdoorsman leaves Colorado for Illinois? Six months into his tenure as general superintendent with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Adam Bianchi still gets asked that question.

A bird-friendly building ordinance has once again been introduced to the Chicago City Council — the second time such legislation has been brought before City Council since 2019 — but advocates fear the measure was dead on arrival.

The Chicago Harbor Lock was built in the 1930s as part of the project that famously reversed the flow of the Chicago River. WTTW News explains.

Thunderstorms dumped 2.43 inches of rain at O'Hare Airport, Chicago's official weather station.

Chicagoans should prepare for anything weather-wise on Tuesday as meteorologists track storms potentially developing to the west.

Once again, early bird honors go to Pippin, the unlucky-in-love bachelor who’s marking his third year at Montrose in search of a mate.

There’s a divide in the pollinator gardening movement between those who advocate for nothing but native plantings and those whose standards are less rigid. New research suggests there’s a middle ground.

Cook County’s Trash Bash series offers people a one-stop shop to unload items for donation or recycling.

Something sweet is coming to Chicago in 2027: the Candy Hall of Fame Experience.

Jackson Park’s cherry trees are beginning to blossom, a South Side rite of spring that’s as bewitching as it is unpredictable.

The change was suggested at Wednesday’s meeting of the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners.